Friday, May 29, 2009

Well I was able to come out of nationals with only soul-crushing disappointment and a smashed up heel (just in time for tryouts). Anyways, AFTER nationals was great. Awesome cabin near Ohiopyle thanks to Jakey's negotiating skills, great bbq thanks to Dave's dad, and intense games of chess followed by a fishing session too intense for the fish. These fish, along with the fish lining the Japanese coast, obviously tore each other to shreds in a pheromone-induced frenzy from POWERBAIT's 100% garaunteed most advanced technology. This I believe was the main reason for our lack of hooked fish. Still, we crushed southern PA fishing in our own way. RIP trout of the Ohiopyle.

Dave is looking aggressively for jobs in DC (more like douchey craphole), and Andy is talking about moving to MD too. This is just plain dumb. Please refer to my self-help guide on choosing a new location outside of Pittsburgh:

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Time to follow up that playoff series extravaganza with a sweep of college nationals so I can make another collage with Mom. Anyways, graduation is coming, I somehow got a job despite economic apocalypse, and I have some pretty major presentations. One of these has $2k on the line and is in front of a panel of professional judges. Promised the group I'd shave... so here is the last gasp of the beard:

Getting better. Definitely a very annoying amount of facial hair. It's been over a month, and now it is annoying to drink and eat stuff as it gets all over the hair. Let's compare to last year:

Huh. Dunno. It feels a lot fuller. Mind you, this guy up top went into the end of the Eastern Conference Finals. Let's check the sides.

Ok, definitely some improvement there. I can't figure out why blogger won't let me do side by side photos. Oh well. Still the dent though. Let's make like Jesus and turn the other cheek.

Well hey! Very solid. Absolutely in the chin and goatee areas. Farewell 2009 playoff beard. And remember Pens, anything is possible, just like KG said in that disney movie... I mean, NBA finals.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

I totally forgot about the playoff beard update! Here it is, and I am eating a bacon sando to make it real hardcore and/or trendy.

Whoops! Wrong photo. Looks like someone got the swine flu! Ha! You can also see 5725 Phillips back there!Awesome. I don't want to say anything about today's game as it is going on now and I don't wanna jinx nuthin. Go Pens!

Showed up on the fields in Corvallis on friday morning for a day before practice. The last time I had done a practice at the tournament location was Worlds 2006... I like it, really gets everyone focused and familiar with the surroundings. Practice was solid, hip was shaky but better than practice earlier in the week. Highlights included throwing a bomb to Joel and putting my butt in Albert's face. Non-highlights included the longest and dumbest warm up jog ever. But then we got pizza buffet. Saw the wolverine movie (kind of sucked, also the place had no icees), and discussed the role of fluffers (still unclear). Then a group of four of us played 3-par golf and it half sucked and half ruled and not as easy as the driving range. The weather was awesome.

Saturday came and the weather was shit. This was good news, as we had all our weekday practices pretty much in the ocean. So we romped through victoria and utah, I got beat deep twice bad and was pretty pissed about that. Had a short break and then came UBC. We traded for a little, they were shredding our zone, and then we went ratched off a run, and then the wind picked up. After that they were toast, and we coasted into semis. At the end of the game a hard rain started with major winds. This was good.

We had looked at UW's final at Centex against Colorado and they struggled hard. I think at 2-2 in the semis was when we broke upwind, and got the downwinder a little later, then broke twice more before half... I think it was 8-5 or 8-4. We ran away with it in the second, and were totally psyched.

Had an icebath saturday night and did not realize how hard those things suck. Right before I got in I realized how hard it is to get into the cold ocean, but by that point my feet were in and I was already crying. It worked pretty well though. The Pens lost and turns out Dutchy is a caps fan, which only makes sense as he is a Patriots fan. Hmmm... sounds like he just likes douchey teams which goes well with his douche shake that he drinks every night.

Stanford game. Blech. Offense wasn't there, dropped throws, crappy decisions... Got a lot of breaks, but so did they. They played very well and have a pretty conservative offense based on the handlers.

On to the other game! We had just lost on UP, it was much less windy, and UW was talking about how they are gonna take this one from us. We start out in zone, and they are dropping the disc, and we go up 5-0. After that we didn't really look back. Got two more breaks in the second half and they were done... something like two garbage breaks at the end after we dropped a couple and didn't play d. Pretty badass ending when I throw the huck for the goal to Dylan, it's called back on a pick, then just throw the same huck to Joel for the win. Wes breaks out the cigars.

Awesome. Definitely a long, and now very rewarding season... I think we can win some quality games and play with nothing to lose. Go duders.